President Macron could announce new nationwide French lockdown TOMORROW

French President Macron could announce a new nationwide lockdown today as a growing wave of anti-lockdown protests sweep Europe. 

The French government is envisaging a month-long national lockdown to combat the coronavirus resurgence which could take effect from midnight on Thursday, France‘s BFM TV reported yesterday.  

Macron is due to make a televised address at 8pm today which is expected to see a national lockdown imposed or a host of local measures and curfews extended.

His office did not comment on whether Macron would announce such a measure then.

The national lockdown under consideration would be ‘more flexible’ than the strict restrictions on movement imposed in France in March this year, reported BFM TV.

France has had a big spike in the number of daily deaths from COVID-19, recording an additional 523 deaths in 24 hours this evening, the highest daily death total since April.

The French government also reported an additional 33,417 new infections.

Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin told French citizens to ‘expect difficult decisions’ ahead of the announcement today by Macron.

Macron is hosting two emergency Defense Council meetings to discuss further restrictions against a second wave of the virus.    

Schools could remain open even as restrictions on people’s movements become more severe, BFM TV added.

Sources familiar with the government’s thinking said earlier this week that options being envisaged for some areas included confining people to their homes at weekends, closing non-essential shops and starting curfew measures earlier.  

It comes as the number of people currently hospitalised in the nation increased by 1,194 from Monday to Tuesday, bringing the total to 18,978. 

French government spokesman Gabriel Attal said: ‘Nobody disagrees with our objective, which is to absolutely prevent our hospitals being in a situation where they can’t admit new patients.’ 

Whilst France’s 9pm curfews imposed on many of the largest cities including Paris, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse and Lyon, has kept anti-lockdown protests at bay, other European cities have seen demonstrators turn violent. 

In Italy, violence was reported in at least two major northern cities, Milan and Turin, as vast crowds protested freedom-limiting restrictions enforced to tackle a second surge in coronavirus cases. 

Witnesses said a number of luxury stores, including a Gucci shop, were ransacked in central Turin as crowds of youths took to the streets after nightfall, letting off huge firecrackers and lighting coloured flares. 

Far right demonstrators clashed with police in Rome as they took to the streets to protests against the coronavirus restrictions.

The Government is now considering further restrictions including early closures of bars and restaurants to contain a resurgence of the pandemic.

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has said he wants to avoid a repeat of the blanket lockdown earlier in the year. But a number of regions have imposed overnight curfews and the central government is expected to announce more measures soon. 

In Milan at least 28 people were arrested after protesters threw Molotov cocktails at police in the capital of Lombardy, the original epicentre of the virus in Italy which is now seeing a resurgence of cases.  

Meanwhile in Barcelona, demonstrators set rubbish bins on fire in the streets – before riot police intervened to bring the chaos to an end.

The demonstrations came just one day after Spain declared a second nationwide state of emergency covering all regions except the Canary Islands.

Spain and Italy have both seen infections increase to record levels over the last week along with those in France, Britain and other countries, although the Czech Republic and Belgium have the highest rates of any major countries in Europe.

Earlier this month, France surpassed one million confirmed coronavirus cases since the start of the pandemic, becoming the second country in Western Europe after Spain to reach the mark.  

French President Emmanuel Macron called on citizens to respect a nightly curfew and other measures to fight the rapid spread of the coronavirus. 

It came as protestors set garbage cans on fire and clashed with police in Naples, Italy, as a curfew was imposed to curb the growing spread of coronavirus. 

WHO figures say Europe is now accounting for nearly half of the world’s new cases, partly because of mass testing 

How long before it happens in Britain? Europe is boiling over with rage at more coronavirus lockdown rules – and politicians who flout them risk a collapse in respect for the rule of law, writes LEO MCKINSTRY

• At least a dozen cities  in Italy have seen violent protests this week
• There have also been protests on the streets of Barcelona and explosive anti-lockdown rallies in  Prague  
• There have also been major protests in several cities in France including Paris and Marseille

By Leo Mckinstry for The Daily Mail

As the coronavirus crisis drags on, the mood in Europe is turning ugly. Tempers are fraying. Frustration is at boiling point.

And, as the shocking photos on this page reveal, with new Covid restrictions being introduced across the continent, many countries are sliding into open rebellion.

Take Italy, for example, where this week at least a dozen cities have seen violent protests against the government’s reimposition of a tight lockdown.

The most serious occurred in Milan and Turin, where demonstrators committed arson, vandalised public transport, looted shops and attacked the police with stones and petrol bombs.

The flames of discord have spread to Spain, where the declaration of a second state of emergency and the prospect of a six-month lockdown led to huge protests on the streets of Barcelona, with scores of rubbish bins set on fire.

There have been explosive anti-lockdown rallies in the Czech capital of Prague, at least one of which had to be broken up by the police using tear gas and water cannon.

Even Germany, where the public is renowned for its obedience to authority, is experiencing unrest.

‘Why aren’t you telling the truth, Mrs Merkel, about how we are losing our freedom, jobs and health?’ read one placard at a demonstration in Berlin.

Across the Channel in France, where a state of emergency has also been declared recently, there have been major protests in several cities, including Paris and Marseille.

Indeed, one poll yesterday showed that just 37 per cent of French voters think that the government of president Emmanuel Macron has handled the pandemic effectively – hardly a surprise given that the daily total of infections passed the milestone of 50,000 on Sunday. 

 So how long will it be until Britain follows suit and street protests are triggered?

Thankfully, our country has not yet reached the stage of combustible revolt. 

But, as stoicism gives way to scepticism, it is clear that there is far less unity now than there was back in the spring when the first lockdown was introduced.

Anti-lockdown demonstrations are a regular weekend occurrence in central London, while the willingness of normally law-abiding citizens to comply with ever-more complex regulations is beginning to fray.

This week even the BBC presenter Victoria Derbyshire admitted that if the rule of six were still in place by Christmas, she would ignore it. 

She later backtracked from this stance, but her initial statement reflected an increasingly widespread disenchantment with the current rules.

According to the latest polls, only 39 per cent of the public approve of the No 10’s Covid policy.

Even Tory MPs seem to have had enough, with a number of those in northern seats now on the verge of open rebellion against the Government’s perceived lack of a coherent exit strategy from the new Covid lockdowns being imposed on them with devastating economic impact.

As someone who has to self-isolate because of an underlying health problem – the onset of Parkinson’s Disease – you would expect me to support the current restrictions. 

Yet I have deepening reservations about the Government’s handling of this crisis.

For it appears to me that we have ended up in the worst of all worlds, governed by rules that are both draconian and ineffective.

A central part of the problem is that the public’s faith in officialdom has been badly eroded, largely due to the gross hypocrisy of those who devised Britain’s restrictions.

After all, it is impossible to maintain national cohesion when there is one law for the hard-pressed citizenry, another for the privileged elite. 

Too many of the rule-makers have turned out to be rule-breakers, refusing to tolerate the same sacrifices that they so piously demanded of others.

The most egregious purveyor of such double-standards was undoubtedly Downing Street’s chief strategist Dominic Cummings, whose notorious trip by car to Barnard Castle in County Durham after he had contracted Covid was a clear breach of the lockdown.

His lack of contrition, never mind his refusal to resign, has permanently undermined the Government’s credibility and, I would suggest, was a tipping point for the public mood which, over the past few months, has been increasingly restive.

There were, of course, others like him, such as Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick, who visited his self-isolating parents in distant Shropshire at the peak of lockdown, or SNP MP Margaret Ferrier, who shamelessly made a round-trip between Scotland and London last month despite knowing that she had tested positive for the virus.

Just as reprehensible was the behaviour of doom-mongering scientist Professor Neil Ferguson, the real architect of the lockdown strategy, whose illicit trysts with his married lover made a mockery of his own stern injunctions against household mixing.

 ‘I thought I was immune,’ he said in his defence, having tested positive for the coronavirus and isolated himself for ‘almost two weeks’ – an utterance that we now know contained more political than medical truth.

Meanwhile, the morale-sapping impact of such hypocrisy on the country has only been compounded by the Government’s heavy-handedness in meting out new restrictions.

More than 8million people in England are now living under the highest Tier 3 rules, while the devolved nations of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have even tougher lockdowns.

Indeed the Welsh government appears to have become a mix of theatrical farce, communist East Germany and Cromwellian puritanism. Bizarre, contradictory regulations on essential sales have led to books on supermarket shelves being cordoned off with police tape. 

‘I can buy a Babycham, but not baby milk,’ complained one shopper, highlighting the nonsense.

At the weekend, a service at a church in Cardiff was even raided by police with searchlights because it broke Wales’s particularly draconian ‘firebreak’ restrictions.

This assault on essential liberties is wholly unBritish. Freedom is meant to be central to this country’s heritage. 

Yet today, ordinary people are being heavily punished without trial for the breach of some arbitrary edict.

Just ask Manchester University student Carys Ingram, who was recently fined £6,600 after she posted a photo of herself on social media breaking quarantine rules during a visit to see her family in the Channel Islands.

Of course, it could have been worse. Last week individual penalties of £10,000 were imposed on three Nottingham students for holding a house party.

And in recent weeks we’ve seen just how easy it is for this jobsworth mindset to descend into outright cruelty.

That trend was epitomised earlier this month during a funeral at a Milton Keynes crematorium, where the ceremony was interrupted by an appallingly cold-hearted official who rushed forward to prevent a son from hugging his grieving mother.

It was a deeply disturbing indication of how individuals are being made to suffer unnecessarily by the current social-distancing measures.

Yet we must remember, too, that Britain as whole is also paying an enormous price for the current restrictions, both economically and in terms of our general health.

At the start of this year, who could have thought that by October we would be living in a country where the national debt is bigger than the size of the economy?

And so, after failing so miserably on so many fronts, it would take a Government of some nerve to now demand absolute obedience from the British public.

For if it does, it will only stoke the fires of indignation.